The Road to BI Success in SAP Environments: Are You On It?

special RepoRt

| Business intelligence

S-�Reproduced with permission from the Jan n Feb n Mar 2010 issue of SAPinsider with permission from its publisher, WIS | sapinsider.wispubs.com

When SAP acquired Business Objects two years ago, cus-

tomers initially had questions about how to incorporate

SAP BusinessObjects business intelligence (BI) and infor-

mation management (IM) solutions into their SAP environ-

ments. That space is now well understood.1 I am, however,

still hearing lots of questions about the product roadmap

for BI and IM, and many customers aren’t fully aware of

how much has happened since the acquisition.

In this article, I’ll share a summary of the key IM and BI

best practices, integrations, and optimizations that SAP has

delivered in various product releases and service packs

over the last 20+ months — and preview what’s to come.

The SAP BusinessObjects IM Portfolio: What’s New and Most Relevant for SAP Customers?Some of the most notable new features of the SAP

BusinessObjects IM portfolio (see Figure � on the next page)

include functionality that makes it easier to get data into

SAP NetWeaver Business Warehouse (SAP NetWeaver BW),

access the data in more flexible ways, and keep tabs on the

downstream consequences of any source changes:

Now that SAP BusinessObjects Metadata Management

supports SAP NetWeaver BW, data lineage and impact

analysis for SAP NetWeaver BW are available to customers

for the first time. Data lineage answers important ques-

tions like: Where has the data come from? What has it

been through? And impact analysis should be part of any

IT survival kit; it lets IT professionals understand the

impact of data source changes on end-user reports and

other downstream data consumption. “Reputation assur-

ance” might be an even better name for impact analysis

— it avoids the classic case of a user asking: “Why doesn’t

my report work anymore? What have you changed?”

SAP BusinessObjects Data Federator, which makes SAP

NetWeaver BW data available with high performance,

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now supports Data Store Objects (for low-level, detailed

information), MultiProviders (as a union between Info-

Providers), and InfoCubes (for aggregated information).

This approach scales very well and is fully compatible

with InfoCubes accelerated by SAP NetWeaver Business

Warehouse Accelerator (SAP NetWeaver BW Accelerator).

Unlike other federation products that support SAP

NetWeaver BW via public BAPI access, SAP BusinessObjects

Data Federator accesses the data in SAP NetWeaver BW

directly and at the lowest level (right above the InfoPro-

viders) while leveraging metadata in SAP NetWeaver BW.

Customers using this connectivity for large operational

reports have experienced excellent performance results.

What’s New with SAP BusinessObjects BI Tools?There are also new optimizations and features on the

SAP BusinessObjects BI tools side (refer again to Figure 1),

including:

Usability improvements (such as fold/unfold capabilities

for complex reports) to better consume SAP NetWeaver

BW hierarchies in SAP BusinessObjects Web Intelligence

Franz AmanVice President

Business Intelligence and Enterprise Information Management Product

Marketing SAP BusinessObjects

Division, SAP

The Road to BI Success in SAP Environments: Are You On It?

Inside This Special Report

S-3 | SAP Americas: Openness at SAP — The Key to a Successful BI and Information Management Strategy

S-5 | PBS Software GmbH: Optimize Your SAP NetWeaver Business Warehouse Data

S-7 | Fujitsu: Uncover the Hidden Treasures of Your Business Warehouse

S-8 | Idhasoft, Inc.: Make the Most of Your SAP Data Now: Deploy Prebuilt, Production-Ready Reports

S-9 | Lodestone Management Consultants: 4 Steps to Ensure Your BI Strategy Is Actually Strategic

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Business intelligence | SAPInSIder

Reproduced with permission from the Jan n Feb n Mar 2010 issue of SAPinsider with permission from its publisher, WIS | sapinsider.wispubs.com

A dramatic performance boost (nearly 90%) by taking

out layers and optimizing MDX queries

Better lifecycle management for OLAP universes on SAP

NetWeaver BW; changes in SAP NetWeaver BW are now

automatically promoted and reflected in OLAP universes

Implemented in Xcelsius, new BI Consumer Services (BICS)

connectivity provides direct access to SAP Business

Explorer (SAP BEx) queries and views in SAP NetWeaver

BW; with this new connectivity, customers can not only

get faster and more direct access to SAP NetWeaver BW,

but also leverage their existing SAP BEx views and

queries to get best-of-breed, interactive dashboards for

SAP NetWeaver BW data while minimizing additional

license and implementation costs

Article continues on page S-10

FIguRe 1 u Key new

information

management (IM)

and business

intelligence (BI)

innovations and

integrations avail-

able today in SAP

landscapes

SAP NetWeaver Portal

SAP BExSAP

Business-ObjectsExplorer

CrystalReports Web Intelligence Xcelsius

SAP BusinessObjects Enterprise

SAP

Busi

ness

Obj

ects

Met

adat

a M

anag

emen

t

Dat

a Fo

unda

tion

Info

rmat

ion

Acce

ss

Any Portal, Any Destination

Third-Party Databases and Applications SAP Business Suite

SAP NetWeaverBW Accelerator

SAP NetWeaverBusiness Warehouse

SAP BusinessObjectsData Services

(Data Integrator andData Quality Management)

SAP NetWeaverMDM

ERPFinancialsOperations

Human ResourcesCorporate ServicesSAP NetWeaver

Information LifecycleManagement

CRM

SRM

SCM

PLM

SAP BusinessObjectsData Federator

2

3

4 56

1

1 2 3 4 5 6 78

910

New Information Management (IM) Innovations1 SAP NetWeaver MDM: Deeper integration with SAP BusinessObjects Data Services

and SAP NetWeaver Process Integration Support for standard SAP NetWeaver administration and

lifecycle management tools

2 SAP BusinessObjects Metadata Management: Support for SAP NetWeaver BW, including data lineage and impact analysis

3 SAP BusinessObjects Rapid Marts: 11 Rapid Marts for SAP Business Suite, plus support for the latest SAP BusinessObjects Data Services and BI releases

4 SAP BusinessObjects Data Services: Improved integration with SAP NetWeaver BW to extract, cleanse, and integrate data from SAP and third-party sources

5 SAP BusinessObjects Data Quality Management: Support for the latest SAP releases (SAP CRM 7.0, SAP ERP 6.0, SAP NetWeaver MDM 7.1) and other third-party applications, including Siebel CRM and UCM 8.x, and Informatica PowerCenter 8.6

6 SAP BusinessObjects Data Federator: Prebuilt integration into SAP NetWeaver BW, enabling data warehouses consisting of SAP

data and third-party sources

New Business Intelligence (BI) Innovations1 Access in-memory data from all data sources: Intuitive self-

service data exploration against SAP NetWeaver BW, non-SAP, and combined data

2 Fold/unfold viewing control: Complex reports, especially of hierarchical structures, can be navigated easily

3 Better performance against SAP NetWeaver BW: Up to 87% query performance improvement

4 Report publishing via Web services: Publish any part of a report easily via standard Web services

5 Removal of � million cell limit: Unlike some third-party tools, SAP BusinessObjects BI solutions get all the data

6 Query on query filtering: You can now query on report results to leverage existing reports and queries to get more specific results

7 Easy-to-use filtering widgets: Wizard-based creation of input controls for efficient end-user navigation

8 Reuse of SAP BEx assets: BI Consumer Services (BICS) enables direct access to SAP BEx queries and views

9 OLAP universe refresh: OLAP universes for SAP NetWeaver BW stay in synch with changes to SAP NetWeaver BW

10 SharePoint integration: Microsoft SharePoint support across all BI content; cross-repository content search


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Your marketing department likely relies on a certain applica-

tion to run its part of the business, just as your finance

department relies on another. And your HR department

probably has a specific information management system it

prefers to use. These systems and applications may or may

not be from SAP — and they probably sit in different IT land-

scapes on a multitude of databases and application servers.

Businesses are challenged by these silos of information.

Achieving a 360-degree view of data across numerous infor-

mation systems is a goal every organization strives for yet

seldom attains. It is an age-old problem that is fully recog-

nized at SAP — and it’s what led SAP to focus on an open and

agnostic information access strategy for its solutions.

Information for everyone: A Democratized, Open ApproachThe concept of openness is a key priority for SAP. It has

played a leading role in the development of our information

management (IM) and data warehousing solutions, as well

as our newly evolved business intelligence (BI) layer.

Although long embraced at SAP, openness is an approach

that has evolved slowly over time. In the early days, SAP

solutions were often perceived as proprietary and challeng-

ing for organizations to incorporate with non-SAP applica-

tions. However, as data volumes grew and business

applications proliferated, SAP jumped into action and not

only strengthened many core technologies, but also started

offering new BI solutions from the SAP BusinessObjects

portfolio to give customers access to a broad range of both

SAP and non-SAP environments.

Now, by implementing a standard open strategy for

information access and management (see Key Concept box),

SAP sets the stage for organizations to meet — and over-

come — today’s challenges of rationalizing and consolidat-

ing information and business processes.

The 3 Pillars of SAP’s Openness StrategyLet’s explore the key technical areas in which SAP strives to

achieve openness for customers.

1. Unlock Disparate Data with open Data integration

Data integration helps bring together cleansed data (see

sidebar) from a company’s various and varied applications

and databases. SAP provides the technology, tools, and

packaged applications required to rapidly and successfully

integrate data from a range of non-SAP enterprise applica-

tions with its own and other systems. Real-time and batch

data integration is designed to simplify and speed data

movement and sharing across applications. This allows

users to easily explore, extract, transform, and deliver data,

regardless of where or how the data is stored.

Openness at SAP: The Key to a Successful BI and Information Management Strategy Dan Kearnan

Director SAP Business Intelligence

Solution MarketingSAP Americas

Key Concept: Open AccessSAP has evolved its BI and IM strategies for greater focus on enabling open access — unlocking and accessing all corporate information, structured and unstructured, regardless of format, shape, size, or location. Broader data access ultimately means that users within an organization can make decisions more confidently because SAP delivers a consistent user experience, no matter what the data sources are.

¨Data Quality: A Prerequisite to OpennessProviding trusted, accurate information is a critical

step in developing a solid foundation for open infor-

mation access. Using SAP’s information management

solutions, organizations can centralize the discovery,

correction, and prevention of data quality issues

through a native interface. This interface embeds

data quality capabilities within many different appli-

cations, whether SAP-based or not.

With a commitment

to heterogeneous

and agnostic

solutions, SAP is

uniquely posi-

tioned to provide

its customers with

complete informa-

tion access to

meet any BI and

IM needs.



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2. enable Better Decision Making with open

Data access

Every organization likely has multiple underlying databases

and data stores from several vendors — it’s a reality that

SAP understands well. While data integration efforts focus

on extracting, transforming, and loading data into a data-

base or data warehouse, SAP’s business intelligence solu-

tions provide direct connectivity to both SAP and non-SAP

applications while maintaining support for single sign-on,

authentication, and security.

Native driver support for non-SAP databases and data

warehouses is essential for achieving true openness.

Whether the information you need resides in a relational

or OLAP database, a mainframe system, or a packaged

application, SAP’s business intelligence solutions can easily

access and exploit this information through native or

ODBC connectivity.

The overriding benefit of having access to both SAP and

non-SAP data is organizations’ ability to now turn to

SAP BusinessObjects BI solutions for comprehensive BI

functionality that can empower users to make effective,

informed decisions based on solid data and analysis.

3. provide a consolidated View of all Data with open

Data Warehousing

A data warehouse stores standardized, consistent, clean,

and integrated data sourced from various operational

systems in use within the organization. Combined with a BI

solution, data warehouses deliver an easy way for compa-

nies to conduct in-depth analyses of their data to leverage

important trends.

SAP achieves openness in three ways related to data

warehousing. First, through its own data warehousing solu-

tion, SAP NetWeaver Business Warehouse (SAP NetWeaver

BW), SAP provides reliable and open data acquisition by

tightly integrating data across all SAP applications and

business processes and enriching accessibility of heteroge-

neous data sources and data quality.

The second data warehousing area showcasing SAP’s

spirit of openness comes by way of new strategic partner-

ships with Teradata and HP. SAP NetWeaver BW is now opti-

mized to run on Teradata and HP Neoview databases,

expanding the footprint of databases already supported:

Oracle, Microsoft SQL Server, and IBM DB2.

SAP BusinessObjects IM and BI solutions complete the

picture for openness with end-to-end data warehousing

and analysis. SAP’s close partnerships with key industry

vendors ensure that all customers, regardless of which data

warehouse they’re using, can take advantage of SAP’s

powerful enterprise reporting, query and analysis, and

performance management solutions.

Recognize the Benefits of an Open Information StrategyFaced with a plethora of different data sources, platforms,

and legacy systems, business users want to get the

information they need by leveraging their current technol-

ogy investments.

SAP meets the needs of a truly heterogeneous system

and business environment by:

Offering organizations the ability to integrate and

consolidate data from any application and data source

Providing broad and flexible support for standard

industry applications and solutions

The result: companies get instant insight across all cor-

porate data for a 360-degree view into the entire business.

This is the essence of SAP’s openness strategy. With a

commitment to heterogeneous and agnostic solutions,

SAP is uniquely positioned to provide its customers with

complete information access to meet any BI and IM needs.

And as the number of enterprise data sources and volumes

continues to grow rapidly, organizations that can manage

and harness their data hold a distinct competitive advan-

tage over other companies.

To learn more about SAP’s open approach to business

intelligence and enterprise information access, visit www.

sap.com/usa/solutions/sapbusinessobjects/index.epx. n

Open Information Access Through Enterprise PortalsSAP provides its customers with the ability to orga-

nize and display business intelligence (BI) informa-

tion within your existing enterprise portals, SAP

or otherwise, allowing you to view and edit BI

content, schedule reports, and integrate BI content

into existing workflows.

As the number of

enterprise data

sources and

volumes continues

to grow rapidly,

organizations that

can manage and

harness their data

hold a distinct

competitive

advantage.


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Companies that are looking to keep their data in an acces-

sible place — without bogging down their SAP NetWeaver

Business Warehouse (SAP NetWeaver BW) systems — need

to embrace the principles of information lifecycle manage-

ment (ILM). They must employ proven ILM strategies to

control unlimited database growth and stop their database

costs from exploding.

To achieve this goal, many companies manage their data

by moving it to an archive or an external nearline storage

system and deleting it from the SAP NetWeaver BW system.

To move data to a nearline storage system, companies can

use a file-based archiving process — which is likely familiar

to those that work with SAP ERP. Or, as of SAP NetWeaver

BW 7.0, they can move their data to a nearline storage

system via SAP’s nearline storage interface.

These nearline storage solutions have grown in popularity

because they allow users to run queries more easily on

archived or nearlined data. In addition, nearline solutions

offer high data compression and fast query access combined

with low hardware requirements.

By consistently moving data to a nearline solution,

companies can significantly reduce the load on an SAP

NetWeaver BW database. To find a nearline solution that fits

your company’s needs, you should turn to an established

third-party vendor like PBS.

PBS’s Innovative Nearline Solutions Help You Optimize Your System PerformancePBS Software is a dedicated solution provider with 18 years

of experience working with the SAP archiving environment.

Our company has over 1,000 customers all over the world

and currently offers products — all of which are certified for

SAP NetWeaver BW 3.x and 7.x — to support an organiza-

tion’s ILM initiatives.

Our product line includes two solutions for the new

SAP NetWeaver Business Warehouse nearline interface. As

we mentioned, these solutions are available for SAP

NetWeaver BW releases 7.0 and up. However, our solutions

can also be downgraded to support SAP NetWeaver BW 3.x.

These solutions are:

PBS CBW NLS ADK. This solution is completely file based

and is built on SAP’s Archive Development Kit (ADK) tech-

nology. PBS CBW NLS ADK is a pure software solution

written in ABAP that requires no additional database,

making it easy to implement. To drill down to archived

InfoCubes or Data Store Object (DSO) tables, the solution

operates with special archive indexes and archive aggre-

gates that are generated in compressed files outside of the

SAP NetWeaver BW database. This solution can be seam-

lessly integrated into existing archive infrastructures.

PBS CBW NLS IQ. This solution uses column-based data-

base technology from Sybase — the Sybase IQ Analytics

Server. In contrast to the file-based approach, leveraging

column-based technology requires no archive files,

archive indexes, or archive aggregates. This is what makes

this technology so unique. With column-based technol-

ogy, nothing else is needed to compress data. This means

that PBS CBW NLS IQ enables extremely quick ad hoc

query response times, even when there are high levels of

nearline data compression. Please note that one prereq-

uisite to using PBS CBW NLS IQ is this: A company’s

SAP NetWeaver BW data must be properly archived using

SAP’s purely nearline-based data archiving process, which

works without file archives. The archive data is then gen-

erated directly in Sybase IQ. Note that you’ll also need

additional server hardware to run Sybase IQ.

No matter which of PBS’s nearline storage solutions you

choose, your company will gain quick query access and be

able to optimize system performance because both solu-

tions store data in highly compressed form on low-cost

hardware (see sidebar on the next page). It is important to

note, however, that all solutions from PBS are based on the

premise that the SAP data archiving process has already

taken place.

Optimize Your SAP NetWeaver Business Warehouse DataPBS Offers Powerful Nearline Storage Solutions

Prof. Detlev SteinbinderMember of Management

PBS Software GmbH

nearline solutions

offer high data

compression and

fast query access

combined with

low hardware

requirements.



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Additional Features and Benefits of PBS’s Nearline SolutionsBoth PBS CBW NLS ADK and PBS CBW NLS IQ have addi-

tional compelling features. For example:

When used in conjunction with SAP’s data archiving

processes, users can archive InfoCubes or DSO data into

PBS’s solutions.

In many SAP NetWeaver BW installations, significant disk

space is occupied by data from the persistent staging

area (PSA). For that reason, PBS’s solutions provide a

PSA component that makes it possible to archive PSA

tables in a file archive or directly in the Sybase IQ nearline

server. This in turn allows companies to retain these

tables because PBS’s solutions compress them to less

than 10% of their original size at a 90% compression

rate. After the archiving process, the PSAs can be deleted

from the SAP NetWeaver BW database.

Archived PSA data can be included in new SAP NetWeaver

BW data transfer processes to set up new DSO or Info-

Cube data. The PSA functionality allows users to reduce

the size of the SAP NetWeaver BW database very quickly

and efficiently. In customer systems, this functionality

has been used to reduce the size of the BW database by

40% in only a couple of days.

Both solutions have a built-in PBS Data Export Interface.

This interface allows users to extract tax-relevant data

from SAP NetWeaver BW tables for auditing purposes.

The data extracts are then saved as sequential files

in ASCII format and can be evaluated directly with tax

audit tools. Supported data sources for these extracts

include InfoCubes, DSOs, master data, text files, or any

transparent tables.

PBS also supports displaying archived data through

MultiProvider queries. If no MultiProviders are available,

they can be generated in the PBS CBW Cockpit. This

technology is also quite helpful for archiving data

before upgrading to SAP NetWeaver BW 7.0. In these

cases, the archive data that is generated in SAP

NetWeaver BW 3.x will then become available for query

retrieval in SAP NetWeaver BW 7.0.

Learn MoreIn summary, a major advantage that PBS’s solutions offer

is their ability to combine both archiving and nearlining

functionality. This combination helps customers achieve an

ILM implementation that fits their specific requirements.

In addition, PBS solutions feature a wide variety of func-

tions that extend well beyond the requirements of the SAP

standard nearline interface — including MultiProvider

support for all SAP NetWeaver BW releases, PSA archiving,

and audit extracts.

If you’re interested in learning more about the benefits

of nearline storage and about PBS’s array of nearline solu-

tions, I strongly encourage you to visit www.PBS-Software.

com/PBS�SAPBW.html. n

Optimize Your Query Run TimesIt’s important to keep in mind that archiving only helps reduce costs if large DSO tables or InfoCubes are also

archived. But many business users worry that archiving these items will increase their query run times. They want to

know: How fast can queries run against archived data?

Query run times really depend on the archiving method used. If InfoCubes are archived on the Sybase IQ Analytics

Server, fast query performance can be achieved without modeling any aggregates or indexes. The column-based

technology provides shorter query response times than queries against normal databases.

For queries against very large InfoCubes, with hundreds of millions of records, PBS recommends the CBW NLS IQ

solution. Here, the fast-loading capability and column technology truly offer significant advantages especially as

more and more users access their nearline data in parallel mode.

Customers who use the CBW NLS ADK solution can tune their query performance by setting up the PBS archive

aggregates or indexes in the right way. Here, greater knowledge of the SAP NetWeaver BW data model is quite useful.

A well-defined archive aggregate can also lead to query run times in the range of several seconds.

A major advantage

of PBS solutions is

their ability to

combine both

archiving and

nearlining

functionality,

helping customers

achieve an ILM

implementation

that fits their

specific needs.


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Data stored in a business warehouse is a lot like buried

treasure: It can only be retrieved by the owner of a treasure

map — the skilled and patient information worker who can

create complex queries and tactfully dig through a tangled

mass of information.

But what if that information worker could retrieve data

much faster and with more straightforward techniques?

What if other users unfamiliar with the business warehouse

could also quickly and intuitively locate the information

they need? This could increase the benefit of the data ware-

house enormously.

With SAP BusinessObjects Explorer, SAP hands a treasure

map to anyone within an organization that leverages SAP

NetWeaver Business Warehouse (SAP NetWeaver BW).1

Users can directly and intuitively access data by using key-

word search functionality within SAP BusinessObjects

Explorer. The secret is the combination of the high perfor-

mance of SAP NetWeaver BW Accelerator and the user-

friendly SAP BusinessObjects functionality.

Fujitsu enhances the use of SAP NetWeaver BW Accelerator and SAP BusinessObjects explorerHowever, widely opening the data warehouse to all relevant

users requires more than just an excellent solution. It also

requires a strong foundation — including an optimized plat-

form, easy implementation, excellent integration, and reli-

able support. Here’s where Fujitsu comes in: We offer

expertise gained by working on more than 7,000 SAP inte-

gration and implementation projects worldwide.

Fujitsu’s solutions and service offerings give organiza-

tions end-to-end project coverage for both SAP NetWeaver

BW Accelerator and SAP BusinessObjects Explorer. Fujitsu

provides:

BW Accelerator Infrastructure, a preinstalled and vali-

dated infrastructure environment consisting of powerful

� ForanoverviewofSAPBusinessObjectsExplorer,seetheSAPspecialreportonpage3�ofthisissueofSAPinsider(sapinsider.wispubs.com).

PRIMERGY blade servers, reliable storage technology,

Linux OS, and the SAP software stack

Implementation services specific to SAP NetWeaver BW

Accelerator and SAP BusinessObjects Explorer to guide

the customer through successful implementation

Maintenance services for BW Accelerator Infrastructure

Across all of these services, the mature Fujitsu implemen-

tation methodology allows users to jumpstart their treasure

hunt by enabling them to quickly use SAP BusinessObjects

Explorer. And because the customer-specific SAP Business-

Objects Explorer solution comes preinstalled, the imple-

mentation phase is significantly shorter. This is not only an

enormous advantage for the IT department, but it also

allows users in different operating departments to rapidly

benefit from the solution. In addition, Fujitsu’s integration

services, which are based on best-practice templates, mini-

mize customers’ integration efforts. These services include

performance checks and the evaluation and design of

complete architectures and processes.

Maintenance and support services are also available

from Fujitsu. Our SolutionContract offering ensures opti-

mal safeguarding for your data search and retrieval.

SolutionContract provides a single point of contact for all

infrastructure-specific topics related to SAP NetWeaver BW

Accelerator or SAP BusinessObjects Explorer. Fujitsu offers

reactive, as well as proactive, services based on a remote

service connection, thus further reducing operating efforts

(note that SAP provides the SAP software maintenance).

Set Yourself up for a Successful expeditionPlanning your SAP BusinessObjects Explorer roadmap is

a bit like planning a promising treasure hunt. To ensure

that your data search will hit the jackpot, you need the

proper equipment and safeguarding on hand — the

offerings from SAP, as well as the strong foundation and

services from Fujitsu. To learn more, please visit http://

ts.fujitsu.com/bwa. n

Uncover the Hidden Treasures of Your Business WarehouseWith an IT Infrastructure Solution from Fujitsu

Thomas BechtelSAP Portfolio Manager

BW Accelerator Infrastructure and Discovery System

Fujitsu

Planning your SAP

BusinessObjects

explorer roadmap

is a bit like

planning a

promising

treasure hunt.




S-�

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Business intelligence |


If your company runs SAP ERP, you’re already achieving

operational efficiency and excellence. But, how do you har-

ness all the valuable data you’re capturing in SAP ERP to

drive your business forward?

You would be hard pressed to find an organization that

doesn’t want to use corporate data to drive more effective

business decisions. When you are making critical decisions

— for example, when you are defining a new market

opportunity to increase revenue, altering product alloca-

tions to your distribution outlets to increase profitability,

or spotting trends within customer behavior patterns to

define and drive new targeted sales and marketing

programs — you need timely, accurate, focused, and action-

able information.

Start with SAP BusinessObjects BI SolutionsThrough its acquisition of Business Objects in 2008, SAP

offers an enterprise-wide business intelligence (BI) plat-

form that SAP customers can use to raise the level of stra-

tegic analysis and reporting within their organizations. The

platform helps ensure that the right data reaches the right

people — in the breadth, depth, and format they require —

at precisely the time they need it to make critical business

decisions and proactively execute business strategies.

The question is: How can SAP customers quickly get

started using SAP BusinessObjects BI solutions against their

existing SAP ERP application data?

extend SAP’s Functionality with Idhasoft’s Packaged Analytics SolutionCombining its SAP ERP knowledge with its SAP Business-

Objects solution expertise, Idhasoft has developed an out-

of-the-box solution called Packaged Analytics (see sidebar).

This solution leverages the full suite of SAP BusinessObjects

components to quickly provide real-time, executive-level

views of your sales, finance, and operational key perfor-

mance indicators (KPIs). Should a concern be flagged,

Idhasoft’s integrated approach allows the user to explore

the information more deeply in search of root causes and

logical next business actions.

The solution delivers prebuilt dashboards based on

industry-specific KPIs, drill-down analysis reports, and clas-

sical production reports that are quickly deployable on top

of your existing SAP ERP implementation (see Figure �).

Moreover, the solution is readily extensible by customers

using traditional SAP BusinessObjects tools.

To learn more about Idhasoft Packaged Analytics, as well

as numerous other products and services in our SAP portfo-

lio, call +1 877 454-4727 or visit www.idhasoft.com. n

Make the Most of Your SAP Data NowDeploy Prebuilt, Production-Ready Reports with IdhasoftPhilippe De Smedt

Executive Vice PresidentIdhasoft, Inc.

Packaged Analytics: Solution at a GlanceIdhasoft’s Packaged Analytics solution provides prebuilt content for SAP

ERP customers, enabling them to read the transactional information within

SAP ERP in real time. This solution comes packaged with Idhasoft’s

SAP Business All-in-One implementation service, but is also available as

a standalone solution that bolts on to an existing SAP ERP environment

and can be easily extended to create additional content — for aging and

cash flow, for example, or for comparing operational plans versus actuals.

What’s more, you can deploy the entire solution in days, not weeks.

FIguRe 1 p Idhasoft’s Packaged Analytics dashboard



special RepoRt



Putting together a business intelligence (BI) strategy is an

important milestone for companies that want to get the

most out of their BI investments. But it’s not easy — most

organizations need guidance on how to draft a strategy that

will successfully align and coordinate all BI activities across

the enterprise. Based on our past project experience, we at

Lodestone Management Consultants have developed a BI

Initiatives approach that enables our clients to do just that.

Lodestone’s 4-Step Approach Lodestone’s BI Initiatives approach is designed to help

companies make sure their BI strategy meets the reporting

and analysis needs of the whole enterprise — and that any

BI tools they select will enhance their BI environment. The

approach comprises four stages (see Figure �).

stage #1: strategy check

Our consultants can assist you with an important, yet often

neglected, step: determining if your BI strategy supports

your overall enterprise and reporting strategy. For example,

if your corporate strategy focuses on cost leadership, your

BI strategy should include detailed cost-of-goods figures.

stage #2: assess Bi processes, culture, Roles,

and architecture

Next, we’ll assess your current BI structure to determine

what processes and roles are already in place. With this

assessment, our consultants can determine the best places

to implement industry benchmarks, best practices, and the

latest available technical options.

stage #3: Define Future objectives for Bi

Anticipating future requirements and objectives is key to

a successful BI initiative. Our consultants will help you

collect, coordinate, and align feedback from your stake-

holders — including the business and IT sides of the enter-

prise — to develop a vision of the long-term goals for your

BI initiative.

stage #4: Define Bi strategy and Roadmap

Finally, our consultants will help you develop a comprehensive

BI strategy and roadmap that outlines specific tasks and

responsibilities. This includes a high-level design and architec-

ture, as well as recommendations for which BI tools and

components will best support your strategy. This roadmap

will also define specific BI initiatives and a mid-term project

schedule that includes milestones and resource assignments.

On top of this, we’ll work with your company to develop

specific KPIs to measure the success of your BI program so

that you’ll be able to easily demonstrate project progress

and meet the expectations of your project sponsors.

Learn MoreLodestone Management Consultants is a global management

consultancy committed to designing and delivering solutions

that enable global companies to thrive in today’s complex

business environment. We are experts in designing and

implementing large-scale SAP ERP and BI software architec-

tures that leverage your existing investments and know-how.

For more information, please visit www.lodestonemc.com

or contact [email protected]. n

Timo SchulteDirector

Lodestone Management Consultants

4 Steps to Ensure Your BI Strategy Is Actually Strategic

An Exciting Time for BIWith the integration of new SAP BusinessObjects solutions into the existing

SAP landscape, customers are benefiting from a sustainable and even more

user-oriented BI architecture. Lodestone’s four-step approach to defining a

BI roadmap will help SAP customers optimally plan their BI landscape to

get the most value from their SAP investments.

Strategycheck

Define BI strategy and roadmap

Assess BI processes,

culture, roles, and architecture

Define futureobjectives

for BI

FIguRe 1 t The

four stages of

Lodestone’s BI

Initiatives

approach

Lodestone’s

BI Initiatives

approach is

designed to help

companies make

sure their BI

strategy meets

the reporting and

analysis needs

of the whole

enterprise.



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Customers today are adopting SAP BusinessObjects BI

tools because they find them easy to use, more visually

appealing than their SAP BEx tools, and full of capabilities

that aren’t available in the SAP BEx toolset. Organizations

are already realizing the benefits, including increased self-

service and greater end-user adoption of BI. Most enter-

prises are also seeing expanded SAP NetWeaver BW use,

which is leading to better ROI from SAP NetWeaver BW.

I strongly recommend that SAP customers adopt SAP

BusinessObjects BI tools for all their reporting, ad hoc anal-

ysis, and dashboarding needs. For multidimensional (OLAP)

analysis, customers should continue to use the SAP BEx

analyzer tool until the next-generation OLAP analysis tool

(codenamed “Pioneer”) is available.

What’s Next? The SAP BusinessObjects RoadmapSAP’s public BI roadmap (available via the SAP Developer

Network at www.sdn.sap.com/irj/scn/vste) already unveils

key capabilities and features of the next major release of

SAP BusinessObjects Enterprise, version XI 4.0:

At the heart of the new release will be a revamped

semantic layer with full support for hierarchical data

structures in OLAP sources like SAP NetWeaver BW.

SAP BusinessObjects Web Intelligence will give users full

access to data hierarchies for filtering and sorting.

The inclusion of a data federation capability will enable

multisource universes and simplify analysis across

multiple data sources and types.

Additionally, SAP BusinessObjects universes will include

newly designed and optimized connectivity to SAP

NetWeaver BW, and SAP NetWeaver BW customers will be

able to leverage their existing SAP BEx queries and views

via BICS access in Crystal Reports (for enterprise reporting)

and Web Intelligence (for interactive analysis), in addition

to Xcelsius. Customers gain the best of both worlds: the

seamless reuse of existing SAP BEx investments and proven

BI self-service capabilities based on a semantic layer that

abstracts the data complexities away from the end user.

What’s more, the next-generation OLAP analysis tool

“Pioneer” (which is based on the SAP BEx analyzer engine)

will be able to open existing SAP BEx analyzer workbooks.

“Pioneer” uses the charting and interactive visualization

known from tools like SAP BusinessObjects Explorer and

SAP BusinessObjects Voyager — so the entire user experi-

ence is designed for ease of use and includes additional

innovations to help analysts with complex, advanced analy-

sis tasks. Again, existing SAP NetWeaver BW users will get

to maximize their existing investment and gain access to a

next-generation, easy-to-use analysis tool.

Recommendations: Are You Making the Most of BI?SAP customers now have access to market-leading BI

capabilities that have been optimized to support end-to-

end BI for SAP environments and non-SAP data sources and

applications. I encourage customers to start implementing

new SAP BusinessObjects BI and IM tools today and build

out a roadmap for adopting the next-generation release of

SAP BusinessObjects Enterprise, version XI 4.0.

The most critical success factor for a BI program is to have

a proper plan and strategy. An architectural diagram is not a

BI strategy. A BI strategy needs to start with an understand-

ing of the business pains that BI can solve (see sidebar).

To learn more about the SAP BusinessObjects portfolio,

visit www.sap.com/solutions/sapbusinessobjects. n

Article continued from page S-2

Successful BI Needs a Proper Strategy: SAP Helps You Build OneAs part of our “Road to BI success with SAP” program — which includes a

complete framework, content, and tools to help customers implement BI —

SAP worked with Gartner Consulting to develop a BI strategy workshop

(see figure below) consisting of four sections called playbooks:

Playbook 1 includes lists of the most common business pain points —

sorted by line of business (LOB) — that BI can solve. These lists are used

to determine the degree of each pain point and the impact it could have

on the company if addressed effectively through BI. The result is a pri-

oritization visualized in a matrix.

Playbook 2 provides the scope and components of a BI strategy, best

practices, and an assessment of progress and results to date.

Playbooks 3 and 4 are all about analyzing the results of playbooks 1 and 2

and translating them into solution recommendations and business benefits.

I encourage customers to use this or a similar methodology to create and

articulate a BI strategy, as well as key performance indicators (KPIs) for the BI

program. This is as critical as choosing the right technology to ensure success.

To learn more about the workshop, best practices, and how to build a BI

strategy, please visit www.sdn.sap.com/irj/boc/bi-best-practices.

p A four-phased approach to developing a BI strategy

Current BIneeds baseline

analysis

BI strategyand execution

baseline

Gapanalysis

BI strategyfoundation

Playbook 1 Playbook 2 Playbook 3 Playbook 4


The Road to BI Success in SAP Environments: Are You On It?

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